Rhizomatic Meditation

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I recently attended a forum titled ‘Democracy Under Siege: Authoritarianism and the Psyche’. It was fascinating; just in case you were wondering exactly how nerdy I am…

During the panel discussion a comment was made that democracy asks us to embrace rhizomatic thinking or rhizomatic imagination. This phrase immediately jumped out at me because I had just taught the last ‘Way of Roots’ meditation class and I knew this was tied to that topic, but how?

A rhizome is “a continuously growing horizontal underground stem which puts out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals” like ginger or iris plants.

If you look at rhizomatic learning, you will see the work of Inna Semetsky. She writes, “a rhizome does not consist of units, but of dimensions and directions.”

I think this is an interesting lens to view our meditation practice through as well. Rather than a clear end goal that we are systematically working towards, accomplishing one study unit and then the next; instead we grow horizontally along our path underground.

It isn’t always clear. It definitely isn’t linear. Nor are we always fully aware of the process happening underground.

So, we continue to meditate, we journal, and we share or discuss with our community to help us uncover/discover what is happening as we grow underground. 

Join me for today’s episode of The Mindful Minute as we chat about rhizomatic meditation {I definitely just made that term up}, and then share in a 20-minute guided meditation.